“Domestic trouble?—it might be indiscreet to inquire—but I take an interest in all my subordinates. Is there perhaps any financial trouble? Just tell me freely. Our salaries are not high, I know, but, if I am rightly informed, you have some private means.”
“At your Excellency’s service,” assented Van Arlen.
“I thought so, otherwise we might have thought of offering you some assistance in this respect. But as it is, I suppose the extent of your work is such that it presses too heavily on one man; and so I have been considering the feasibility of appointing one more official to my department, subject to His Majesty’s approval of my nomination.”
Van Arlen turned deathly pale; now he understood the Minister’s friendliness, and the fate that lay before him; he understood also that the first offer was by way of gilding the pill. He had refused the gilding from pride, but had to swallow the pill all the same.
“I assure your Excellency that I do not know what work could be entrusted to such an official.”
“That is quite a minor detail,” said His Excellency, naïvely. “However, I wished to consult you first about the matter, and perhaps you will be so kind as to have the proposal drawn up. Baron Regenstein is the person meant.”
“The son of your colleague?”
“I believe so; but he is a man of great acquirements, whose help will be extremely useful to you. I shall want the paper before two o’clock.”
Van Arlen bowed and rose.
“Oh, as to salary, we shall give him eighteen hundred guilders.”